Chapter One: Rebirth, Part 1
For a moment, a brief moment, little Bruce Wayne thought he was going to die.
He'd been playing hide-and-seek with his few childhood friends: Thomas Elliot and Roman Sionis, although there were assorted other children from various rich families that either Bruce's parents had wanted him to befriend, or the children's parents themselves wanting their kids to be Bruce's friends.
It began when Roman had found a glossy sliver of obsidian, no bigger than a shot glass, poking out of the Waynes' garden. None of the group knew what it was at the time, but they were mesmerized by its ebony sheen nonetheless.
"C'n I see it, Rom'n? Please?" plead Bruce. He had dark, messy hair and naïve hazel eyes. He'd been surrounded by luxury all of his life, but never had he seen something like the sliver of obsidian.
"Shut up, I wanna see it!" demanded Thomas. He was blonde, and bigger, nearly four inches taller than Bruce, and nearly three inches taller than the slight, mahogany-haired Roman.
In response to the two's pleas, Roman held up the sliver high above his head. "Y'see with your eyes, not your hands!" he taunted.
Sneaky as he was, Bruce leaped and swatted the obsidian form Roman's hand. It was a remarkable feat for an eight-year-old.
The boys watched in complaint as the obsidian danced down the hill, clattering against the rocks. It finally hit a rather large piece of granite and stopped, dead in its tracks.
"I'll get it", said Bruce. "I'm the one who threw it."
He slid down the hill, loosening rocks in his path. When he reached the bottom, he ran after the sliver. Just as his foot fell, so did the ground around him.
For a moment, a brief moment, little Bruce Wayne thought he was going to die. As he fell, he caught glimpses of rock, dirt and grass, all whizzing around him. It seemed as though he'd let them free and he wasn't falling at all. But they weren't, and he was.
He'd landed on the dirt, hard, sending some of it into the air. Dust from the new opening fell over him like a choking fog. A spotlight of sun shone from the hole he'd left.
Bruce had just stepped onto the inch-thick layer of ground, covering the entrance to a somewhat known cavern. A rather dark one, at that; Bruce could barely see two feet in front of him.
Flutter. Flutter.
Bruce's head darted back and forth, his eyes squinting in the black, searching for the obsidian.
Flutter. Flutter. Flutter. Flutter.
The light from the opening reflected off of a corner of the cavern. The sliver!
Flutter. Flutter. Flutter. Flutter. Flutter. Flutter. Flutter. Flutter. Flutter. Flutter. Flutter. Flutter.
As Bruce was reaching for the obsidian, he could just barely hear Thomas and Roman calling for him. He ignored the voices. They seemed so far off, so distant . . . surely they could wait a little longer.
Flutter. Flutter. Flutter. Flutter. Flutter. Flutter. Flutter. Flutter. Flutter. Flutter. Flutter. Flutter. Flutter. Flutter. Flutter. Flutter. Flutter. Flutter. Flutter. Flutter. Flutter. Flutter. Flutter. Flutter.
Bruce's hand closed around the glassy shard of obsidian. He giggled. "I got it!"
Flutter.
The first one came. It flew just over Bruce's head. Bruce knew what a bat was, he'd just never seen one in real life before.
FLUTTER FLUTTER FLUTTER FLUTTER SQUEEEEEEEEEEE SQUEEE REEET REEET REEET FLUTTER
Two more. They looked just like the first one, all leathery and wide and flapping; snapping jaws, squeaking throats, and swerving.
They were the heralds of the storm.
And the storm . . . did it ever come.
Hundreds of bats, Bruce felt they were in the thousands, flooded Bruce's part of the cavern.
They were like shadows, they were. Dancing, dashing shadows zapping by, screeching, snapping, clawing. The bats, the dancing shadows, zipped by, slashing absent-mindedly, zooming in every which way and where. They were like smoke. A looming, giant, black, random blob of particles. Particles that had their own desires and interests.
Bruce was, as one would say, crippled with fear.
He swatted at the creatures, trying to get them to leave.
They persisted.
Slash, whoosh, whizz . . .
Cat-scratches whipped themselves onto Bruce's skin as the bats flew by. Most of them did fly by. Others, more malevolent ones, stayed and nipped at Bruce's scalp and arms.
Bruce didn't dare move from his spot, lest he face the entire onslaught of the nocturnal beasts. Anything more than what he was facing now would give poor little Bruce a cardiac infarction.
Two Hours Later
"Bruce? Bruce, are you hurt!"
The bats had left Bruce alone after a while, after they no longer deemed him a threat. After all, would you consider a quivering, crying, nonmoving mass of flesh a threat?
Bruce lay on the cavern floor, dazed and curled into the fetal position. Lines of red decorated his face and arms, with maroon crescents present at his hairline.
"Bruce, are you all hurt?" shouted Thomas Wayne, again. He was lowering himself into the cavern, strapped in a rope and harness. Thomas Wayne, CEO of Wayne Enterprises, Civil Rights supporter, former Women's Suffrage supporter (what's the point of fighting in a war if your side's won already?), and spear-header of the Wonder City Project, could be described as handsome. His hair, the same shade of brown as Bruce's, was slicked back. He had piercing, dark brown eyes that radiated kindness and goodwill. He didn't allow any form of facial hair to grow, and saw to it personally that any lone hair on his upper lip or chin was eradicated immediately.
His father's soothing voice pulled Bruce from his spellbound state. "Dad? Daddy?" Fancy that. He called him "daddy". It didn't matter that his friends were watching. He was safe.
Thomas Wayne gently pulled Bruce from the cavern floor and into his lap. He jerked on the rope thrice, to which he was instantly hoisted closer and closer to the surface.
Bruce looked into his father's eyes. Remembering the earlier incident, he began to cry. Thomas Wayne shushed Bruce and hugged him. "Hush, hush . . . Bruce. Don't be afraid." He pulled Bruce away and looked at him, smiling. "No one's going to hurt you now."
Even though anyone else, and even Thomas Wayne himself, would have denied it, Bruce Wayne felt his father had saved him.